Hunger and Thirst by Richard Matheson

flesh of his nostrils the pores were big and black. He pressed out a blackhead between two nails. The blackhead squished out and there were two red lines left on his nose where the nails had dug in. The pore gaped empty.
    In the dim light his beard looked more blonde than it was. The hairs were light until they ran over his chin and jaw line where, abruptly, they became black and wiry. He ran his knuckles over the bristle on his chin. It sounded like wood being sandpapered.
    As he stood there, idly rubbing, he wondered what he should use for a weapon. He had to have a weapon.
    He left the bathroom and went back to his room. There he looked around. He looked at the toothbrush holder, the tube of toothpaste, the peanut butter jar, the knife, the glass, the fountain pen. He could not help chuckling as he spoke quietly, “I know I’ll use the rose, I’ll beat in his skull with it.”
    He decided to use his pocket knife. He’d keep it shut and press it against the lining of his pocket. The old man couldn’t tell the difference. And, without effort, came the plan—if he cries out, I’ll press the button on the knife and plunge the long razor blade into his scrawny old throat!
    It made him shudder and once more he gripped himself in a vice of forced rage. The bastard! He wants my watch for nine dollars, does he? For nine, lousy, stinking, son of a bitch dollars! The watch my own mother gave me after I served in the war and her dead too! I’ll cut out his fucking heart!!
    It was enough. He was ready to go.
    He dropped his knife into his coat pocket, a cloud of icy resolution seeming to fall over him. He felt calm and capable. He knew exactly what he was going to do. It was simple mathematics. The old man had money and he wanted it.
    Simple.
    He jerked down the light bulb string and went out of the room, closing the door behind him. As he pulled the brim of his hat over his forehead, he heard the drunk explode into a frothy bubbling cough.
    God, this place stinks, he thought as he went down the stilted stairway. It’s lousy and lopsided and it stinks. The air was pungent with the musty stench of heavy dust and old, uncleaned rugs and molding walls and ceilings and stairs. It was like walking down the stairs of an old listing schooner as it slid below the waves. He tried not to breathe through his nose as he trudged down. He could taste the air. He kept moving down, listening to the stairs squeak as he shifted his weight from foot to foot.
    He reached the third floor and turned, his palm running over the dusty, splinter-topped bannister.
    He looked dully at the three red pails hanging on the wall where the stairwell started down again. The words—
For Fire Use Only
—were printed on the wall. He thought about a fire in this place. He thought of whores and laborers running naked in the halls screaming. He thought of the drunk lying comatose in his bed while flames ate his flesh away without him even knowing it.
    It made him smile.
    Vaguely, the thought occurred to him, of setting the house on fire to punish them all. They would be in flames soon enough, he thought, why not hasten the process and make their hell on earth an actual one?
    He went down and turned again and started along the second floor, a trudging phantom in brown.
    “Aah, shut the hell up, ya
fuck!”
a high woman howl came clawing through an open transom. He shrugged. The words meant nothing. They could be words of love.
    He reached the first floor and went down the hall and out through the doorway into the night.
    It was raining.
    Raining on Third Avenue. There were dark ghost clouds smoking through the black sky. There was a train rattling over his head on the elevated tracks, the wheels drumming in rhythm. Da-da-da
-dum
, da-da-
da-dum
,—Rob the old man, kill the old man, stick in the knife, cut out his heart—da-da-da-dum,—he had no heart Da-da-da…
    The brakes squealed and a hundred pigs were stuck and screamed out—
Murder!
—in the night.
    He